As from April 2011 all Draka UC-brand multimode cables for LAN and data centers are replaced by bend-insensitive fiber optics at no additional cost to customers
Since April 2011 the entire range of UCFIBRE branded cabling solutions with OM3 and OM4 multimode technology is upgraded to bend-insensitive fiber technology, giving greater value to customers for the same price. MaxCap-BB-OM3/4 technology since then is included as a standard feature of the cabling solution, as well as bend-friendly MaxCap-BB-OM2 in former OM2 assembly and distribution cables.
Bend-insensitive technology represents a huge boost in functionality and solution quality for IT managers, who enjoy significant value-add as well as installers looking to future-proof cabling infrastructures resulting in:
- end-users enjoying high reliability data centers
- lower downtime and maintenance
- savings in racks and housings thanks to higher cabling density
Bend-insensitive fiber technology provides recognised, measurable benefits in LAN and data center cabling, such as increased spare system margin that improves 10G and higher network reliability. It also stimulates the possibility of new, reduced-size cable designs that are lighter in weight improve cooling efficiency, and offer reduced environmental footprints – supporting the evolution to greener data centers.
Fiber deployment is growing exponentially in data infrastructures. With storage, server and edge devices moving in the direction of 10Gb/s speeds and beyond, a core network now needs to support much higher data traffic speeds. This has lead to the development of 40GbE and 100GbE standards, designed to address short reach transmission, through parallel transmission over multimode optical fibre cabling, with significant cost advantages over LAN WDM when compared with the use of single-mode optical fiber.
In parallel to the continued evolution of OM4 multi-mode fiber standards, bend-insensitive fibres have been developed to enable more compact cable cabinets – reducing ownership costs. In addition, smaller diameter, flexible cables increase cabling density, alleviating the pressure that massive optical cabling puts on installation practices by eliminating bending as a critical factor for data signal loss.
Draka customers get free bend-insensitive fiber benefits for LAN and data center cable solutions : All Draka UC-FIBER branded cables containing OM3 and OM4 fiber are equipped with bend-insensitive MaxCap BB-OM3/4 fiber technology as standard.
About Bend-insensitive fiber
Draka introduced the first versions of BendBright in 2002 and has since expanded the product family to five versions of bend-insensitive fiber, spanning both single-mode and multimode types. Today, Draka sees an explosion in demand, with single-mode bend-insensitive cables alone exceeding the 3 million kilometres production mark. The latest developments in BendBright technology leverage the versatility of Draka’s PCVD manufacturing deposition process, using a simple, robust all-solid Single-Trench-Assisted Fiber profile.
In 2009, Draka introduced MaxCap-BendBright-OM3/4, the multimode version of bend-insensitive fiber featuring high-end bending performance with full backward compatibility to standard multimode fibers.